CDC data does not show that 99% of COVID

FILE - Respiratory therapist Frans Oudenaar, left, and registered nurse Bryan Hofilena cover a body of a COVID-19 patient with a sheet at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in Los Angeles, Dec. 14, 2021. Posts online are falsely claiming that 99% of COVID-19 deaths were due to other causes. But this is a misrepresentation of recent CDC data, which shows 1.7% of deaths in the U.S. were from COVID-19 the week ending Aug. 19. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

CLAIM: Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that 99% of deaths attributed to COVID-19 were actually caused by something else.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The percentage misrepresents CDC data. The agency’s most recent numbers show that for the week ending Aug. 19, 1.7% of all deaths in the U.S. were due to COVID-19.

THE FACTS: A misrepresentation of CDC figures has led to accusations online that COVID-19 deaths are being overstated.

Many online posts cite as proof a Daily Mail article published on Tuesday with the headline, “99% of ‘Covid deaths’ not primarily caused by the virus, CDC data shows.” These posts received tens of thousands of likes and shares on Facebook, Instagram and X, formerly known as Twitter.

“Good morning - it’s time for a bunch of people to go to prison for life,” reads one popular tweet that included a link to the article. “We tried to warn you.”

But the information being shared is based on a faulty interpretation of the data. The Daily Mail has corrected its article to reflect what the numbers actually show.

According to the CDC’s COVID Data Tracker, 324 people in the U.S. died of COVID-19 during the week ending Aug. 19, which is just 1.7% of all deaths in the country during that time period. The tracker explains that this percentage was calculated by dividing the number of COVID-19 deaths by the number of deaths from all causes, and multiplying the result by 100.

A correction added to the Daily Mail article notes that “an earlier version of this article claimed 99 percent of Covid deaths in the past week were not primarily caused by the virus.” It then describes how the actual data was calculated and states that the article has been amended to reflect this. The headline of the article was also updated to read: “Covid to blame for just 1% of weekly deaths from all causes across the US, CDC data shows.”

Scott Pauley, a spokesperson for the CDC, told The Associated Press that the Daily Mail article now accurately reflects the agency’s data and that the CDC has been in touch with the publication about this issue.

The Daily Mail did not respond to a request for comment.

Since Jan. 5, 2020, approximately 1.4 million people in the U.S. have died of COVID-19, according to the CDC’s most recent data. Hospital admissions for the virus have risen steadily since early July, but they are much lower than past peaks. Current weekly death rates are also significantly lower than when they peaked at 25,974 during the week ending Jan. 9, 2021, accounting for 29.9% of all deaths in the U.S.___This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.